02.42-43: Are we mixing up our means and our ends?

The power of illusion often makes us mistake the means to be the ends and the ends to be the means. Even among believers, many get misled by religious materialism, and mistake the things of this world to be the ends and devotion to God to be the means to acquire and secure those ends. However, our connection with worldly things is temporary, whereas our connection with God is eternal; that’s why the Bhagavad-gita (2.42-43) points out that making the eternal as a means to the temporary is a pathetic underutilization of our life’s potential.

To utilize our life’s potential fully, we need to make the temporary the means to the eternal by using the things of this world as the means to the ends of establishing an eternal loving connection with God.

To protect ourselves from mixing up our means and our ends, we need to regularly connect ourselves with the scriptures, the devotees and the environments that focus on pure devotional service, which is the expressway for unleashing our potential for eternity.